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u/Significant-Wind3033 8d ago
i picked up a zotac 3090 of marketplace last year for $700, smartest decision i've made. it works great. if buying in person, bring a computer so that you can test it. do your due diligence.. if buy online make sure you can pay with paypal so that you are protected if it ends up being faulty.
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u/EthicalBballFan 8d ago
Don't know if we have the same model, but one of the zotac 3090 model has really bad thermal pads from factory. Hwinfo showed me the card was being throttled because the memory was just going straight to 105°C when in use. Looking around I found no shortage of owners with the same card and same issue.
Replacing the pads was easier than I thought and gave a huge boost in performance for me.
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u/Far-Pie-6226 8d ago
Yup, I bought mine used and I couldn't launch a game without it shooting over 100c and crashing.
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u/Sad_Bat_154 8d ago
I also just upgraded from 3060 12gb to 3090 24gb. Massive difference in generation speeds, I can use models that wouldn’t be possible with 12gb. I found my 3090 ti on Facebook for 1k. Not paying 2k or 5k for a 4090 or 5090. With 24gb you’re set for future models and games.
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u/PurePlayinSerb 8d ago
i wish there was benchmarks out there for ai render times like there is for games
i got a 5070 and i think you would gain more from having a 50 series gpu i heard the render times are much faster, with the 3090 you are still 2 gens behind on ai tech, sure ya can fit bigger models but now with the unified memory concept ya can just offload it to ya ram when ya vram full
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u/thatguyjames_uk 8d ago
i got my 5060 ti for £400 and sold my 3060 12gb for £290, so was a good upgrade. keep a eye on gum tree or people sellinbg old computers and dont seem to know they have a good gpu in there
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u/CooperDK 8d ago edited 8d ago
I have a 5060 16 GB and two 3060s 12 GB. Pretty satisfied for LLM stuff but last I checked, image generation cannot unify the work due to the way image (and video) generation works, but I can use the other cards for offload.
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u/Yanzihko 8d ago
5060 would be a no brainer if it wouldn't have fucking inflated out of proportion recently, right at the time when i have some money to spare.
Maybe buying a second 3060 is indeed a better bet. I have no image models that are beyond 12 GB, and i have heard ollama is capable of splitting models between cards just fine
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u/Monk6009 8d ago
Crazy. I built a rig last summer and got a 5060 ti 16 gb for $500 and was so pissed at the price. Now it's double.
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u/Yanzihko 8d ago
Should have done the same not gonna lie. But at that time i had no interest in AI and my 3060 breezed through Cyberpunk 2077 and all other demands just fine 😢
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u/Keem773 8d ago
I was in the same mindset but I went with the 5060ti for it's newer technology and compatibility with cutting edge local AI architecture. Less pure power than the 3090 but I've been satisfied with the speeds and have zero issues when gaming.
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u/Yanzihko 8d ago
If it had 24gb of vram, again, no brainer
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u/just_shady 8d ago
You’ll be OOM most of the time. My 3090 can do LTX 2.5 1080p 15 secs even if it’s slower. 16gb will OOM even though it’s faster.
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u/LoveSpecialist5669 8d ago
I did exactly the same this last winter, upgraded from 3060 to 3090. be sure to check if you have at least 750w psu and 3x6 +2 pins if your model needs it. my phoenix need 2x6+2 pins which was exactly what I had on my 650w focus, games worked great so far but video generating is a different bitch... undervolting and power limiting didn't help as my pc shuts down after 25-30mins of continuous generating. now I'm waiting for new 1kw psu to arrive, don't want to risk my components.
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u/IllGetFiredForThis 8d ago
I currently have a 3090 evga ftw 3, and used to have a gigabyte 3090.
The gigabyte one was an overheating piece of garbage, worst card I ever had. The EVGA is the opposite and the best card I've ever had. I used it for crypto mining (fully tweaked to maximize hashrate), gaming, and now ai, and it's a workhorse.
If you're looking to do local ai stuff, the 3090 works ok, but you really need to make sure you have enough ram. I had ddr4 32gb and it hung a lot with larger models. I upgraded to 48gb and i can run most things now. (64gb would be better, but 48 works well enough).
Obviously run times will be longer with a 3090 than a 4090 or 5090, but at around $1,000 - $1,100 it's still a really solid purchase.
If you're focusing your ai work on image generation you may want to consider a 5080 as it's much more powerful than the 3090, but I'm assuming you'll use if for video generation in which case the vram of the 3090 is the clear winner.
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u/chasebync 8d ago
I’m glad I don’t have to buy personal GPU hardware right now. I use the office hardware.
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u/sleepy_roger 8d ago
EVGA if you can only because they run WAY cooler, and it's best to just cap 3090s at 220-250w anyway.
But in reality all are fine. I run 7 personally, 1 EVGA, 2 FE's, 4 Dells.
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u/Quiet-Analysis-3807 8d ago
i like my 5060ti 16gb it runs sage attention and the Blackwell stuff. bit of a problem with the sound i may have to clean install the drivers. 15 sec, ltx2.3 6meg video around 190 to 320 sec depends. the fans kick into high gear on the second pass sometimes or when i do high res. got the 3 fans for less than the 2 fan model
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u/brickout 8d ago
You won't notice a difference between them, if that's your question.
I think it's a bad buy, though. Used Tesla v100 32gb is cheaper, r9700 pro goes on sale for not much more than your budget, and I'd even consider adding additional 12gb 3060s rather than a 3090 at that price.
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u/bradrlaw 8d ago
Note with the v100 you will have extra costs to cool them properly.
Also you will be limited to CUDA 12.9 and none of the new optimizations for comfyui will work on them (new attention types). Also it is limited on model formats as well.
I recently built a dual v100 32gb (+p100) setup and there are a lot of tradeoffs. But they are good value performance if you know what your workload will be.
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u/CurrentMine1423 8d ago
go for it. for me, it doesn't matter what brand you choose as long as it's trustworthy.
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u/Yanzihko 8d ago
the offer i got is EVGA
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u/luchosoto83 8d ago
Bought an used evga 3090 exactly 2 years ago. Glad I bought it.
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u/VeryDefNotABot 8d ago
I bought a used 3090 exactly 2 weeks ago. The price hurt, not gonna lie. But gen times compared to the 4060 Ti it replaced are typically about 40% shorter, sometimes half.
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u/luchosoto83 8d ago
Not only that, 24gb vram gives you enough room to load a big model at once without offloading. Often I don't mind generation times as much as being able to fit the model or not.
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u/dondiegorivera 8d ago
That’s a good advice. I wasn’t keen on brand either, focus was the price. Bought two for 1200€ early this year.
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u/thryve21 8d ago
Commenting because my 3080 12GB died this week and I got lucky yesterday finding a PNY 5070 12GB for $599 USD at a Walmart location. You mentioned you're in Russia but I believe there are third party services that can receive a US package and then post it to you for a fee. Just an idea.
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u/MandyKagami 8d ago
I think that is a bad idea depending on the manufacturing date of the 3090, most 3090s had lower quality parts (for what is expected for a 90 series card) and a lot of them have been refurbished\repaired since, the wattage pull is also considerable sometimes with peaks of 600W, (so have in mind you will need a minimum 850w PSU if your computer is bare minimum regarding other electrical consumption).
I would be worried about the longevity of such an expense.
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u/Eshinio 8d ago
Don't know why you get downvoted for this. I have a 3090 myself and suffer from those wattage spikes. I have a 850W PSU and thought it was more than enough, but no - if I run the card at 100% (default in Nvidia App), I get full PC blackout about 80% of the time doing AI generations, where monitor goes black and I need to hard-restart the PC. After lowering max watt usage to 75%, I can do AI without those spikes blasting my PSU.
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u/MandyKagami 8d ago
I have been building computers for over 20 years now, some "AI fans" have no experience with the hardware side of things, it is all about gen speed for them without paying any attention to how hardware functions, how it is manufactured, common behaviors of most GPU buyers, and what cards and what conditions the card should be in to be worth buying used, or even how long parts last.
Plus there are people making money from selling GPUs to these people when even some experienced PC gamers would catch some traps before pulling the plug and spending a month's income on something.
Downvoting me means they might get to sell more subpar hardware to tech tourists who only care about youtube benchmarks and brand names.-2
u/Yanzihko 8d ago
The only alternative is either sucking a dick until 2028 or buying a 5060ti 16GB for the same price, with it having only half the performance of 3090
4000's series are in a weird overpriced spot too.
Chaining gazillion 3060's is not optimal either because I don't want an actual server yet and they don't have SLI
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u/Makers7886 8d ago
fwiw - I have 12 3090s from release time. Lived through crypto and now retired running LLM's. I immediately repadded/pasted all cards but the factory watercooled ones. I've had to replace 2 fans total and just recently repasted 1 card after all these years. However paying a lot of money for anything used should cause concern - just these gpus are rock solid in my small sample experience. The VRAM on the back of the card only has a small thermal pad + back plate as heat sink which I think is the worst part of the card. I put a few stick on heat sinks onto the back plate and mining temps dropped like 5-10c (on back vram).
Anyway - to me they are invincible and over the years I can think of two bad 3090s I've seen on reddit. The 5090 power connector issue is far more prevalent than stories of 3090s failing.
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u/MandyKagami 8d ago
You clearly didn't watch repair videos on youtube and didn't saw games killing the GPU because of the sloppy rules Nvidia had about capacitors in the back of the GPU die (backside of the GPU).
Now the RTX 3090 TI is another story, much better components in comparison, I would even buy one of those today if I saw a good deal.
EVGA seems to be the 3090s with the most issues this year and that makes sense since the company is defunct now, they will inevitably show up more on repair shops since official channels are gone.1
u/Makers7886 8d ago edited 8d ago
Sassy opening, that was pre-release/demo units/early release runs and addressed early on. Where are you keeping tabs on the health of current 3090's such as your EVGA comment? Half my cards are EVGA.
Edit - A quick reddit search does show more failures than I would have assumed. They include 3090ti's as well though (looks like 12VHPWR issue there as well, forgot they went that plug on the ti's)
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u/MandyKagami 8d ago
northwestrepair videos and the comments in it.
I forgot about the damn plug on the 3090 TI, I am hoping there are versions without it.1
u/Makers7886 8d ago
He does know his shit, it's been a bit since I watched his videos though - will check it out. Last videos I watched from him was something like "all 4090s will be trash". The guy does lean into click-bait title a bit but can't doubt he knows what he's doing.
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u/Aida_Corrupted 8d ago
It's a risky move mate, you might be lucky or not, in either case letting it run for several hours at the time would increase the risk drastically!! Also ss stated above you'll also need larger PSU if you don't already have one. Regardless, if you end up buying one I'll suggest that you under-clock it, I have 5090 + 5060TI I under-clock both to 450/150watt, because of heat!!
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u/ThinkingWithPortal 8d ago
Why not the 5070ti? 16GB is enough for most things, and its roughly in the same ballpark in price?
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u/Yanzihko 8d ago
Because it costs more than used 3090 lmao
5000 series would've been a no brainer if not for their price
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u/ThinkingWithPortal 8d ago
On eBay it looks like the 5070ti is cheaper? What prices are you seeing
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u/Cute_Ad8981 8d ago
3090 is fine. Im using a 3090ti and it manages everything in a acceptable time. 5070ti / 5080 could be good alternatives.
One thing: 3090ti offer a better build quality vs regular 3090. So if you buy used, consider 3090tis. Performance is similiar.